Unit Preview: Abyssal Nagarri

Welcome to our second Forces of the Abyss rules preview blog!

We’re diving into the rules of our next unit today, with one more to follow tomorrow. The rest of the faction balance updates will then launch alongside the Clash of Kings 2025 book very soon with every other faction.

So – following in the cloven hoofsteps of yesterday’s Berserkers, ssssomething is ssslithering clossser…

Abyssal Nagarri – The Rules

Let’s take a look at the Abyssal Nagarri, a new chariot-base-sized unit for the Forces of the Abyss.

If you’re looking for the stand-out star attraction in their rules, it’s got to be their regen-buffing aura effect…oh the possibilities!

This means that while they are decent in melee, their biggest strength is being able to further increase the already formidable regenerative powers of their demonic brethren by increasing the number on any dice rolled by +1 when trying to regenerate wounds.

This will really help make Lower Abyssal hordes an even more effective tar pit for enemy combatants because they’ll now be regenerating on a 4+.

Oh, and don’t forget, the Berserkers we talked about yesterday also benefit from this aura too – so you can certainly use them as ‘thick chaff’, running ahead of the Nagarri to tie up a stubborn enemy regiment while benefitting from their aura effect (and potentially also the Sacrifical Imp upgrade to help protect them from a front-facing ranged attack on the way)…

Abyssal Nagarri – The Models

Once again catching up with Dave from the Mantic Studio, he explained where the idea for them really came from:

‘Here we chose to evoke something far stranger and more unsettling than the usual humanoid forms seen elsewhere.’

So there we are: these bad guys are half-snake because we want your enemies to feel uncomfortable. And let’s face it, with that aura effect they should be!

What’s that? ‘Show us the hard plastics’?

Oh, alright then! Here’s the brand-new frame for the Nagarri, and it’s a stunner.

Following on from the beaten metal on our hard plastic Ogre shields in 2022, the frightening Impaler shields or Frostclaw feathers of 2023, or the amphibian skin detail of the Dambusters earlier this year, the studio have managed to really capture the texture of snake scales in a way that will wash and drybrush beautifully, even for the most basic painters among us [Guilty as charged! – Ed.] 

With this kit, all the head and arm combinations are designed to work with the same body, so you won’t find the parts for this one divided up into A’s, B’s and C’s. This is a very cool set of models, and each one is still a nice simple build: just pair up the arms, pick a head, and begin! There’s also a ball-and-socket joint at the waist, so there’s plenty of scope to add extra variety into your poses beyond the head/arm options.

Sssuperb ssstuff. Have you picked up yoursss yet?

Come back tomorrow, where we’ll be covering one more new unit for the Forces of the Abyss! And whatever you do, don’t trust a word it says…